


Pretense of Perfection

by xel



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, and will then become a pikelan collection, i imagine this will turn into a series of ficlets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 14:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12435114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xel/pseuds/xel
Summary: Pike’s a part of Vox Machina. She shares their love, their goals, their sorrows; but they look at her, sometimes, like she is something else. Something sacred or breakable or ... more; other.Pike’s a part of Vox Machina.Isn’t she?





	Pretense of Perfection

**Author's Note:**

> I love Pike? I am not caught up, I’ve got a vague idea of how this all ends, but I’m only on “A Cycle of Vengeance” for now, still ... I’ll take pretty much any opportunity to write a character study?
> 
> I got a bit ambitious with this first chapter. I wanted to tackle Pike’s relationship with Sarenrae, but then I wanted to talk about her interactions with Vox Machina before they left, and then I wanted to talk about her background. Now that I’ve word vomited this chapter I’ll probably want to invest more time in just one topic. 
> 
> So it’s a pretty safe bet this will be multi-chaptered. And Pikelan will be involved. As well as Pike’s relations to the rest of Vox Machina; I do know they love each other. But I think pretty much everyone can agree there’s a serious communication issue within the group.

 

Pike bites her tongue.

It’s more a habit than a conscious action these days; a sort of state of being.

 

It used to be she talked a lot at great lengths about all her opinions to anyone who would listen, but the world is big, and anyone who has seen one knows a gnome really isn’t.

So Pike bites her tongue when Kiki tells her she’s confused, and looks perplexed when Pike says she’s perpetually confused, too. When Vax tells her he’s learning she doesn’t have all the answers, when Scanlan tells her he thinks he loves the idea of loving her; when he says he’s finally found someone that cares about him. She bites her tongue.

How have they so wildly misunderstood her?

Sometimes her friends look at her and talk to her like her presence alone will solve their problems.

Today, they look at her like they are all at once coming to the conclusion that she isn’t what they thought she was.

Part of her has been preparing for this day; the day where saying nothing at all would be the wrong answer.

She only ever wanted to do as much good for as many people as possible. And her relationship to Sarenrae is a servitude born from the penitence of her family’s misgivings, it is not a fated bond; she is not a champion. Sometimes a cleric is just a cleric.

Pike has had misgivings before. She feels Sarenrae everywhere, but they are not connected like Vax and the Raven Queen, so what can she say to him?

And what can she say to Kiki when her relationship with her goddess is so one-sided? Have faith? Pike has never given advice she herself wouldn’t take.

What can she say to Scanlan?

His words sting, and she thinks they were kind of meant to. What can she say to a man who talks to her like he loved her, hurts her by taking it away just as quickly as he gave it, and then says no one cares about him, looking her in the eye the whole while. She can’t tell if he wants her to rebuke the statement, or if he’s just saying it in that quiet passive way his anger manifests, just to let the speech sting a bit more. To drive home that question he didn’t need to ask: why couldn’t you be the woman I needed you to be.

He knows, of course he know. Vox Machina would kill, die, or wait an eternity for Scanlan.

Maybe that’s why she loves Grog the way she does; Grog has never asked or wanted Pike to be anything more than what she wanted for herself. A monstah, a sister, a shoulder of support. But not a porcelain doll, and not a holy woman on a pedestal.

Pike grins and smiles and waves and says goodbye, but she doesn’t stay to watch her friends disappear when they set off that next morning.

There is a weight lifted off her shoulders when she turns back towards the castle, a facade Vox Machina places there when they look at her the way they do; and there is a pit in her stomach like the little black orb of death beneath them, the guilt of getting to breathe.

Not as a cleric, not as some ideal of love, or savior from self-deprivation.

Just Pike Trickfoot.

Perhaps what is most telling is that when she whispers an apology under her breath as she goes, she does not pray to Sarenrae for forgiveness.


End file.
